OCT 8 2023 | The Seven Trumpets of Revelation S1E1 | The Trumpets Sound

Sea Change Church · The Seven Trumpets of Revelation S1E1 · "The Trumpets Sound" · October 8, 2023
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Revelation eight, six through 13. Then the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to sound them. The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down upon the earth. A third of the earth was burned up. A third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.

The second angel sounded his trumpet and something like a huge mountain. All a blaze was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood. A third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. The third angel sounded his trumpet and a great star blazing like a torch fell from the sky on the third of the rivers and on the springs of water, the name of the star is wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.

The fourth angel sounded his trumpet and a third of the sun was struck, and a third of the moon and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light. And also a third of the night, as I watched, I heard an eagle that was flying in midair. Call out in a loud voice, wo, wo woe to the inhabitants of the earth because of the trumpet blast, about to be sounded by the other three angels, the word of the Lord.

Right on. Well, welcome to the third season of the Revelation of John. We are in season three, episode one. This is the third time we kind of dropped like Netflix around here. Uh, so we threw a season and then we stopped for a while. Uh, the reason I started doing seasons and then taking a break in between is one, we can get through the entire council of God's word in a year in regard to the prophetic literature, the epistles, the historic and and such. Uh, but the other thing is, you know, it's rough.

I was at a church one time and they were 57 weeks in the book of Revelation. And by the end I was like, gimme a little John. Just, just gimme a little first P or something. So if you are just joining us for the first time, uh, it might feel as we jump into this episode, it's gonna be like dropping into, uh, you know, the middle season of something like, you know, Yellowstone or some other show you might watch on one of these programs.

You're just gonna be like, whoa, what's happening here? You're gonna, it's gonna be like dropping into a firefight. I mean, we are, we are in the meat, we are into the teeth of the book of Revelation. So just know that this has been ramping up. We'll talk a little bit about that ramp up, but also where we are and we're focusing on the trumpet judgments.

And so we know that revelation is a revelation of Jesus. It's also a revelation of things to come. And it talks to us about who Jesus is and what's gonna happen at the end of days. And we wanna be aware of that as a church so that we can make provision and be ready when those things happen. Lemme give you a little recap of the first two seasons. Uh, we started with John, Jesus' best friend, being exiled to the island of Patmos. And he was given a vision.

And in the vision, Jesus comes with a sword in his mouth. Jesus begins to speak and John is terrified, uh, even with his best friend, Jesus, at the majesty of Jesus. Jesus shows up as a, as a messenger of grace. As he shares the revelation, it is grace that he is sharing what is happening in the world and that we can know. The revelation is grace.

Each of the tribulations that you see happening are grace. Uh, it is easy to think that they are not grace, that it is just God judging the world. He does it in stages. One of the things you'll see is this, a third of the earth and a third of this, and a third of that, I kind of quit counting. But there's probably seven to nine different times where it says a third of the sun and a third of them turn dark and a third of the earth and a third.

Why is this happening in thirds? And the reason is, is because God is, is having the, uh, prophetic revelation as well as the judgmental revelation being happening and being ratcheted up so that with each revelation, with each judgment, people might come to know Jesus. They might get saved. And so that is why God does that. So here's the revelation.

We see John's vision in chapter one, and then number two, we see the letters to the seven churches. This is really important. The book of Revelation doesn't start with all the pagans in the world starts with the churches. God gives an a, a letter and he says, you're gonna be held to account. And he tells them to repent. As we'll see, at the end of this message, we're gonna circle back to the churches that five of the seven churches are told to repent. These churches are in modern day Turkey, what would've been Armenia, uh, in Europe. He tells five of them to repent for something in their lives.

And he tells two and two of them, he gives praise to and doesn't tell them to repent. So 28.5% of the churches, uh, do not need to repent. And we hope to be in a church that doesn't need to repent. And I think those numbers are pretty, um, probably pretty true to what we see in America. I think, uh, you know, and I'm asking, God, show us all the time that we can be true and pure.

But I think there's a good amount of churches and many churches that are just apostate at this time. They've just begun to believe things about whether it be human sexuality or teachings about Jesus, or ways in which we go to heaven, they begin to teach things that are, that are not true. And so we'll see those churches, and we really want to be on that Philadelphia, uh, style church that is praised by God.

And I think those were real churches and real places. And God might say to the church in La Joa, uh, this is what I have to say to you. And that has to do with how we live our lives. Um, one of the things we're gonna see, uh, after we see the churches, we see seven divine judgments. Uh, we'll talk about those in a minute. In, in, uh, verses in chapter four and five. Uh, so we see three sets of seven divine judgments.

We're gonna talk about those sevens. There's a lot of sevens in the scripture, and revelation is full of sevens. Alright? So he starts with three sets of, of, of judgments. We have a seals judgment. We talked about the seals before. Remember there was a scroll. And when John was in heaven, it says, who, here's a scroll, who is worthy to open the scroll. And eventually we find out that only Jesus is.

And he comes and he starts unle and rolling the scroll. As the scroll was rolled, a seal in, in the old in antiquity would be put on the scroll. And then they would roll it a little bit more so it would be sealed. And they did seven seals this way. There wasn't seven seals across the front where he opened it like this and read a little corner. He opened it, opened the next one.

And this is if someone was coming to a castle, the first seal, um, you could have the person who was the guard, they're allowed to open perhaps the first seal. So they would open it and say, this needs to go to the third floor of the tower. And then you would have a person that could break a second seal, or maybe they could break seven seals, but it would be sealed.

And everyone knew what seals they could break according to their authority. So Jesus broke the seals and begins to have judgments come upon the earth. You remember those seals? The first, uh, one, you'll have to go back and read it for yourself, but it was a man that was coming as peace, who ends up being the antichrist. When the seals, these judgments start happening, these three sets of seven judgments, it begins the tribulation period.

So you have the seals, and then you have the trumpets. We're in the trumpets. And the next time we get together for another season of revelation, we're gonna be in the bowls. So we'll be moving on to that. So you will see the fourth thing is that you have three sets of seven divine judgments, seven uh, seals, seven trumpets, and seven bowls.

Let's say the seven occurs that word. Seven. Um, our number seven occurs 437 times in the scripture. Some of those are just random. Hey, he went seven miles. But what you're gonna see is the majority of those occur in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. Now, why is that? Because seven is a number of completion. Seven is a number of perfection.

And the law of God was perfect and it was complete. And there was one thing that we know about the law is that we are unable to keep that law. And so throughout the rest of the Bible, you see us failing to keep the law until Jesus comes. Jesus is able to keep the law, is able to keep, the Torah, does not break the Torah, fulfills the Torah, and then gives us through his death on the cross righteousness that comes, that is imputed by the blood of Jesus on the cross. And now all of a sudden, that law has been fulfilled. Well, you know, these sevens are important.

And when we get to Revelation, we're bookended. The Book of Revelation was, uh, is bookended with sevens. We have 36 sevens in the Book of Revelation. And that is in the top 10 books in the Bible, probably in the top five if I, if I'm right, if wanna misquote myself, uh, or have a misinformation there. But there's 36 times it is used more in Revelation than men, than most other books in the Bible. So you see this, these sevens.

Now as we start, I want to have two things to kind of set the way I preach through the book of Revelations and the thing revelation and the things that are important to me. One is I don't want to be super speculative. I don't want, you know, hey, these scorpions that you see stinging people, well those are nuclear plane or you know, helicopters.

And then you have this, uh, thing being thrown into the sea. And that actually is an asteroid from the, you know, I don't know, the andromedan, whatever, I don't even know the name of the sky or whatever. I was on the treadmill this week at at Y M C A and I spent a lot of times listening to my favorite pastors speak through Revelation and talk through revelation. There's some of my favorite pastors.

And a lot of 'em were teaching in the seventies. A lot of 'em were in the eighties, some in the nineties, some in the early two thousands. And it became quickly evident that the more they specified and time has gone by, I could look back in hindsight and say, oh no, that country doesn't really even exist anymore. So that can't really be the country you said it was.

And a lot of it was just wrong. I don't wanna spend a lot of time in speculation. I want to give practical. I want to give you what I think we can know and things that are important. Israel becoming a nation after 2000 years in 1948 was important, right? So those are things that, that matters because Jesus is coming through that east gate, which is currently sealed of all the gates that are in around Jerusalem, there's one that is sealed, that is the east gate.

That's the one Jesus is coming back, um, to. So the second thing I wanna say is I want to all leave you of fear and alarmism. I think it's easy to get whooped up on, you know, fear and get intoxicated by fear. About every 10 years the church comes up with a new, uh, a fascination with the Book of Revelation. And so it was how Lindsay and some of the others, um, you know, when I was in the eighties and late seventies as I was growing up, I remember we were fascinated by it. And then after that, there was the left behind series. I think that was sometime in the nineties, you know, and on and on.

And we keep seeing more and more of this fascination with the events. I think we're seeing a fascination in revelation again. Um, more so because it feels like it's happening. I think people are looking and going, whoa, that's, that's a, that's new. You know, that's kind of out of pocket, Jesus. So, um, that's for you guys. Um, so these new things start happening that are, that are happening in the, uh, uh, you know, in the world. And we see this, you know, oftentimes this will bring fear. Right? Now I want to, I wanna take you to, you can write this down. I don't know if this made your notes, 'cause I do change the notes for my sermon notes are a little bit different. Um, Matthew 24, 6 through eight, you can write that down. Jesus, when he speaks of revelation, he says, you will hear of wars and rumors of wars.

But see to it that you are not alarmed. That's a command, right? When Jesus says something, he means it. You're gonna hear about all these things happening. But see to it that you must not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nations will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines, earthquakes, various places.

And all these are the beginning of the birth pangs. I believe that we are in the birth pain, birth pang, however you want to say it. Season, I believe things are ratcheting up. Um, things have definitely begun to ratchet up more and more, but I don't believe that we've actually seen or know who the antichrist is or he is been revealed. It might be on the scene, but Satan always has an antichrist ready to go because he doesn't know who the antichrist is either, because he doesn't know when the end of the world is.

The Bible says that he doesn't know. And so this is a revelation for many believers. They think, oh, he's all got it all set. He doesn't know when the world's ending. He's gonna be surprised as well, just like when he crucified Jesus. And as the scripture says, if the spiritual beings would've known when they crucified Jesus what they had done, they wouldn't have done it because he was fooled by the cross. And he's a, you know, and while he's, you know, incredibly smart, he's probably not always wise. And the, I do not believe that the antichrist has quite been revealed.

Maybe he's on the stage. Hitler could have been an antichrist. The Bible says that Nero was a possible antichrist, or one of the Caesars was a possible, a form of anti-Christ. So antichrist will be on the scene and one day Jesus will say, yeah, that will allow that person to be the antichrist. And they will be the antichrist. But until then, we won't know. And so, um, there's reason, ways that you can know, but we will just stop with that and continue on.

So the first thing is stay away from speculation. Let's, let's talk about our own lives. There's so many people that are fascinated with the bold judgments. They're so fascinated with knowing about, you know, what the seals meant. They're so fascinated about the trumpets. And all the time the trumpets are blowing in their lives and they don't herald the call. The trumpets are blowing in their lives. And, and time after time God is tribulation their lives with one event after another saying, come back to me. And they're bearing their nose in the Bible.

Like perhaps five of those other churches seeking all these things except obedience. Do I, do I desire sacrifice? No. God says, through Samuel to Saul, I desire obedience. We wanna be an obedient church. Let's get into these trumpet judgements. I'm gonna drop you right now, parachute you in the midst of a battle. There's a battle going on here if you feel parachuted into the midst of turmoil.

This is gonna happen as we go through these. If you have a seatbelt, put your seatbelt on. Let's go. The trumpet judgements. The seven trumpets are a continuation of the seven seals, which began the tribulation period and are divided into two parts. You stop right there. The seven trumpets are a continuation of the seven seals, which begin the, the tribulation period, uh, period. The first seal, the antichrist comes as a man of peace, but he's a man of war.

And it continues on through the seals. It begins, it says that the, the next thing that we see happen is the seven trumpets happen after the seals. Now, as you continue to see this, it says that the first four trumpets, okay, and the last three trumpets are part of a seven year period of the tribulation. The tribulation is seven years long.

How do we know that? It says a little bit further down in your notes, because most scholars believe that the Book of Daniel, when speaking about the end times, there's a lot of relation between Daniel and Revelation, when it speaks of the time of the tribulation, he actually says it's gonna be seven years. I'll actually read that for you right now. Um, it says in Daniel in 9 24, uh, excuse me, Daniel 9 24 through 27. It says, the book of Daniel each day represents a year.

So I skipped forward a little bit, but we see that there's seven seals and seven trumpets. Each of those, the seals are 3.5 years of a seven year period. The trumpets are 3.5 years of a seven year period. And the trumpets are called the great tribulation seven year period. Started with a first seal, the antichrist of the first seal, 3.5 years of seals, 3.5 years of trumpets. Now, if you didn't think that was complicated enough, let's talk about the trumpets. There's seven trumpets, right?

There's four trumpets that are meaningful and that are climactic, uh, in, I mean by climate, where they affect the world's climate. Uh, you'll see that we're gonna get to those in a moment. And then there's three trumpets that blow. And these are separated. Now they're separated by an eagle. We saw that little eagle kind of fly, you know, come out of in the air and start, um, saying, whoa, whoa, whoa.

For the three trumpets, the first four trumpets that blow are trumpets that are going to begin to destroy the atmosphere and begin to destroy the earth, God's creation. And the second three are, are, are release. Actually two of the, of the final three are release of demons into the world. And so you see a demonic rele release. Um, and then the seventh one I will save for later, which is cool, but mostly about Jesus. But you see this now, trumpets in the Bible are oftentimes an annunciation and a warning.

You see trumpets all throughout the Bible. Lemme give you a few places you see 'em. The battle of Jericho, probably the most well known blow a trumpet, the walls come down. Breakthrough, right? One of the things that we know about trumpets is that they are meant to announce to Herod and to call. We see trumpets in the giving of the law at Moses at Sinai in Exodus 19, the coronation of King Solomon in one Kings 1 39.

So they're part of a coronation. You can see all of these things happening in the book of Revelation. Uh, you can see breakthrough walls coming down. You can see God fulfilling his law. You can see the coronation of Jesus, his king, um, over the earth in, um, in Second Kings. It is a proclamation of the king showing up. That's King Joe Ash. So the arrival of a king, uh, it is also a watchman's warning in Ezekiel 33, 1 through six.

I know we are blowing through this and your eyes are peeling back. It is on Spotify. By tomorrow afternoon, you can go back and listen to it 37 times, seven times actually, it'd be more complete. And then you have a year of Jubilee, Leviticus 25 9. So it's sometimes there's just celebration. We were just in Israel. And one of the interesting things is you'll get there and you'll see guys, when they, when they go from their synagogue somewhere else in the world, sometimes they'll bring the Torah that is, it's just this, it's, you know, can be gold. It's just giant torts.

They're scrolls and they'll bring their scrolls with them to the airport. And they're not putting it in baggage claim, right? It's getting a seat for its own. And oftentimes they'll give it a seat in first class, and the Torah just rolls in first class with the high priest, and he'll just sit there in first class with the Torah.

And so wouldn't that be awesome? Just go, Hey, this seats. Hey, can I sit there? No, this is seats for my Bible, actually. Sorry. Yeah, it's, it was $7,000, but it's for the Bible. And so we would be there, and about every 30 minutes as I'm sitting there getting ready to eat some falafel in the terminal, you'd hear murder and someone would blow a shofar. They would just, you know, totally just blow a shofar. You'd be like, what's that? What's happening? Well, it's a time of prayer. They're there. They got the Torah with them.

And what they do is they take their tour to other churches, or excuse me, other synagogues, and they'll be like, Hey, check our Torah out. They'll lay it out. Everyone will get to, you know, see it and pray with it and the whole thing. So this is kind of a thing that they do. And that's why you saw multiple people doing that. Well, this is what is happening with these seven trumpets that are sounding.

And are we, um, listening to those trumpets. Let's take it back to ourselves as well. I see revelation as a call to myself, as myself being a microcosm of revelation. I mean, God speaks to me. I turn away often. I turned away. I had a, a period of tribulation, great tribulation in my life. And he's constantly calling me when things happen, whether it's by spiritual attack now and not my fault or my fault to come back to him so that he can be revealed and I can spend eternity with him. That is what Revelation says to me. If you want to make it personal, but yet obviously it has cosmological implications as well.

We're gonna see that these seven trumpets now are, are, are, um, in scripture. I just wanna read this outta scripture. I i I mean that I wrote down in scripture, trumpets resound as divine heralds signaling a pivotal moments where they're calling people to unity, announcing jubilant celebrations, making solemn sacrifices, warning of impeding danger or proclaiming victory.

And this is the key part. They often bridge the spiritual in the earthly realms through the use of sound and tone. They bridge between heaven and earth. And that's why these, you know, Levitical, these priests, these these rabbis are blowing the shofar. They understand and feel that there is a connection between heaven and earth when that happens. And it works somewhat like a prayer, at least how that's how we see it used in scripture.

The seven trumpets are proceeded by silence. In Revelations eight, one, when he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about a half hour. That would be a deafening silent silence. I bet heaven can get quiet. Oftentimes the Jews will sit in a thing called Shiva before a time of mourning, af for during a time of mourning, they will sit shiva with somebody for seven days silence.

So if you had a friend, you would go to their house, you would sit in their house and you would just be silent. Sometimes fasting. You see this in the Book of Job where his friends came and sat Shiva with him. This could be getting a little bit speculative, gimme a little bit of speculation. This could be a silence. The calm before the storm.

This could be God mourning that he has to do these things. 'cause God hates to tribulation his people. He loves his people. He doesn't want to destroy the earth because he created it. And he loves his creation, but he loves human souls more and wants to spend eternity with him. And he will go to any length, even crucifying his son on a cross that people might repent and be saved. So let's not put it past him to destroy a creation.

If he destroyed the one who was never created, the one who was unborn, the one that was his son, let's not put it past him, that he might trite the earth, that people might spend eternity with him through the blood of Jesus. You see, that is the passage, and that is the message and the calling of God in this time. So there's a silence. Revelation 11 says, after the silence, there is a commotion, says that after silence, there's a commotion.

As soon as the la as the seventh angel sounded, his trumpet, there was loud voices in heaven, which said, the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord, of His, of Jesus Christ. And he will reign forever. We want to get to that seventh trumpet. That seventh trumpet is when Jesus says, let's go. It's the one where he says, you know, that the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so we'll get to that seventh trumpet.

Let's talk about the four trumpets real quick. You see an environmental disaster, oftentimes we'll see that these, or we believe that the birth pangs are actually a, a smaller version, a less intense version of what's going to happen when the seals and the the seals are broken and the trumpet is released, or when they're blown.

And so it starts happening in the earth and you can see it, and it starts to wake people up. Now, if you don't think that even pagan people are awake right now in regard to the environment. You haven't been around for a while. I don't know where you've been, what island you've been on, especially if you're a young person in college. Um, this is a great opening topic to talk about. Jesus, I was talking to a woman recently, she was telling me all about climate change and her thought of climate change and why this happens and why that happens in too many cars and electric vehicles and off down the rabbit hole. And I said, have you ever thought it might just be God's judgment? Well, it's a little softer than that. Okay, so a little softer. Let's see. I, I pulled into traffic. Uh, and so I began to talk and I said, you know, it says that the, you know, the earth is gonna turn, you know, the, there's gonna be fires and there, then the sea's gonna turn red and blah, blah, blah. She went like this. Don't stop talking. Stop talking. Don't, I don't want to, I don't wanna hear anymore. Stop talking.

That's literally plugged her ears and said, stop talking. That was so crazy. I think, I think one of the best things that we can do is, you know, hey, there's a real good possibility that you know, you poison the earth, you're gonna get poisonous results. I believe that you're gonna have to have a conversation about climate change and carbon and all this. I do know this about the earth. If you poison it, it'll die. Okay? That let's just, can we just all agree upon that?

And that God says that he is coming back to destroy the destroyers of the earth. He says that in the scripture that he will, he's coming back to destroy the destroyers of the earth. And so as a people, we want to be a people that care for creation. We wanna be a people that care for climate. But you see, these first four judgements are environmental. Go to the first one, verse seven.

The first angel sounded his trumpet. And there came hail fire mixed with blood. It was hurled down upon the earth. A third of the earth was burned up. A third of the trees were burned up and all the green grass was burned up. So you lose all the green grass, but only thirds of the others of the trees and such. Um, once again, we have this law of thirds that is happening. It's a law of grace.

God's slowly unveiling it so that people might come back to know him and they will hear the trumpets as they blow. If the trumpets, if people, if the earth repented. I believe that if the earth repented, we know it won't 'cause. Scripture says it won't. But if they repented after the first trumpet, I think that God would just end it. I think we'd be done. You know, he will heal the earth. He says that in Second Chronicles, I think it's five 17, that if his church, uh, repents, he will heal the, you know, heal the earth.

If we call upon his name, we're already seeing these things happening right now. Now the speculative is that this is a, you know, volcano is what I've heard. There was, you know, into the air hail. So it's fire, sulfur, all these things coming down. That's the speculative. What we do know is happening is right now wild climactic, wildfires, I hate to use that word 'cause it's so overused, but wildfires and fire is destroying the earth.

I mean, I don't know if it's worrying you, it's bothering me. I'm not gonna ignore it. Uh, Maui, uh, Corfu, Greece, Canada. Matter of fact, the entire sky over New York, most of the East coast this year, the sky turned red and it was just covered. I mean, you can go from place to place in place. The earth is burning for one reason or another. Some people say, well, people are setting those, some people are, are, you know, it's quiet.

I don't know what it is. But lemme tell you what I can know is the Bible says it's gonna happen and it's happening. The earth is being burned. That's one thing that, that we know. So we see that. I think we're still in the birth pangs. I don't think this even gets close to what it's gonna look like when the angel sounds the first trumpet. But people are aware it's happening.

Use that as a pivot point to speak about God and the Book of Revelation. Use that as a pivot point for evangelism, because the whole point of people being concerned, worried about these things that are happening is that they might know Jesus Christ is Lord. And we are the advocates for that message. Number two, the second trumpet, a blazing mountain.

Second trumpet angel sounded his trumpet and something like a huge mountain and of all ablaze was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood. A third of the living creatures in the sea died and a third of the ships were destroyed. Interesting. Um, I mean obviously the speculative, there was an asteroid. That's what we heard, heard in one of the sermons.

I listened to that an asteroid, this, uh, one Camilla one kilometer wide would destroy like half the earth. Uh, if it hit. I mean, it doesn't take a big asteroid to ruin the earth according to science. Uh, whether an asteroid hits or not, the oceans are being destroyed. I was in Tel Aviv and the amount of plastic and things in the water and people just throwing their c everyone just throws their cigarettes on the beach. I went and started picking up. You couldn't believe it.

I went and started picking up cigarette butts just to clean it up. 'cause I'm like, God, I just care about your creation and I care about Israel. There was a couple that walked by me. They were started laughing at me. It was classic. I was like, okay, the earth is the, the, the, the sea is being destroyed right now. But you know, if you talk to marine biologists, we had a marine biologist up here with a baby dedication, Jake Minnick earlier.

If you just ask people what's happening, just do a Google search. Maybe you don't want to. The sea is being destroyed. And as, as people of God, we need to be advocates for, for God's creation, God says, we'll come and destroy those who are destroyers of the earth. Let's not throw out the baby with bath water just 'cause the pagans are worshiping. You know, Gaia, the nature God that we're, oh, we're not gonna do anything for nature anymore because all the pagans go after it. No, we need to care about the earth.

That's one of the first commands that God has given us care about the earth conserve. He says that, that you must tend the earth and he's coming to destroy those that destroy the earth. We need to be advocates. It is another road for evangelism. Go to a beach cleanup. I gotta say, people who don't know God will gravitate towards that.

You organize a beach cleanup, use it, whatever God, whatever opportunities Paul says, I'll use whatever opportunities want to say that. The second trumpet, even though I don't believe it's happening right now, the birth pangs are happening. It's a trumpet and it's an ability and it's an opportunity. The third, we lose the fresh water here. And the third one that's not great.

3% of the world, uh, water is fresh water. 3% of the world's water is fresh water. That's 90%. It's 97% salt water. Um, I just read a study, uh, lemme just actually just read the verse. The third angel sounded his trumpet and a great star blazing like a torch fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water, the name of the star was wormwood.

A third of the waters turned bitter and many people died from the waters that had become bitter. I'll tell you a little interesting speculative, uh, remember, um, the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine. So the Chernobyl disaster, uh, happened and all the waters in that area went bitter because they became radiated with nuclear waste, right? They just went around.

The Russians were just there and they were trying to put a siege around that recently. And they dug a bunch of holes. And that wasn't really smart 'cause all these guys got radiation poisoning. Uh, the word Chernobyl in Ukrainian means wormwood, which is really, really interested. And it's like, you know, so I remember when I heard that, I remember that in the eighties when that happened, somebody preached that.

I was like, whoa, dude. It's happening. It's happening. Uh, which was really interesting. The Environmental integrity project estimates that 50% of all the world's fresh water sources are contaminated in some degree right now. Right? Forget the trumpet right now. 50%, some degree of, of, of poison, some degree of where it's been being destroyed already.

We see that 2.6 billion people in the world do not have access to clean drinking water. 2.6 billion people in the world. Once again, another opportunity. Fresh water, helping people with fresh water. This is why like 15 years ago, the church was building wells. All maybe you remember, we were building wells. Fresh water is a big, uh, is a, is a big thing. And then the fourth trumpet will end here in just a second.

The fourth trumpet is cosmological. The fourth angel sounded his trumpet. A third of the sun was struck a third of the moon, a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light. And also a third of the night, you see that in Amos five 18. Amos chapter five talks about the darkening in the day of the Lord.

And back, um, in, back in the day, people would go around in the time of amo and go, oh, the day of the Lord, we just hasten the day of the Lord. We want that day of the Lord. And he says, you know, woe to you who, who you know, cry out and long for the day of the Lord. It won't be a day of rejoicing. It'll be a day of darkness.

Imagine a third of the sun's light just being muted a third of the day. The days just get shorter. Night is completely dark. No stars in the sky. Don't you hate a, a cloudy day? Like I, I don't like it super hot either. But it was a buzz kill this summer, right? I mean from, literally from Easter, we didn't see sun hardly at all in La Joa.

And it was like, it's kind of a bummer. Imagine that happening on that kind of scale, what that does, what it does for human emotions, all these things. You see it, those things that are happening. Then this angel rolls out. Now the angel, like I said, is just like, what's an angel doing? I mean, not angel an eagle. What's the eagle doing there? Like, what do we got an eagle for?

Go do a Google search on eagles in the Bible. You'll find a ton of stuff won't get into it all now. So as I watched, I heard an eagle that was flying in midair, clotting, a loud voice, whoa, whoa, whoa, to all the inhabitants of the earth because of the trumpet blast that are about to be sounded as if the first four weren't enough.

The by the other three angels, because this is gonna release. The two are gonna release demons. Number five and six are gonna release demons onto the earth. I began to read that. And I gotta say, if you are spending, I don't know, I spent probably spent eight hours, 10 hours listening to tons of sermons, maybe more, maybe more this week, going through this. 'cause it's a, it's a, it's pretty meaty to teach, right? And you want to teach it in a, in a way it can be really overwhelming and be like, man, and then all of a sudden I'm already kinda a little bit overwhelmed with all of it. And then like a war breaks out in Israel. And I'm like, ah, I'll run, you know? And I said to the Lord, you know, this the eagle thing.

This is so overwhelming. I just need, I need an answer from you to just give me to, to encourage me. Literally a few pages later, I turn through the scripture and I come up with this scripture, Isaiah 40 31. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings of what eagles. And they shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not be faint.

And I was like, you know, the word of God is always sufficient to overcome our fear, to overcome our worry. I'm like, God, you know, let it happen. Just not on my watch. You know what I mean? Can I just tap out before we get to the tribulation? Period? You know? And God has said, no matter what happens, I am there to sustain you.

I have immeasurable peace that you can dive into. Even like Paul being in a prison. You can dive into a measurable joy. You can dive into a measurable grace. I am always there. I will be your shelter. I will be your rock. And all of a sudden it reframes all of revelation for us as believers because this is the message. And I will say, now, if the, if the, if the trumpets are blowing in your life right now, dive into Jesus.

Dive into his word, dive into his grace. So we see that as we come into a landing that what's the, the takeaway? What's, what's the takeaway? The practical takeaways. I got one, I got four for the next four weeks. I'm only gonna do one a week. The practical takeaway is this, repent. I got three more. Prepare, trust, and share. We'll get to those. Number one is repent.

God is warning and calling his people to repentance. He's doing it in thirds and he does it in our lives. You know the proverbs, I believe it says that, you know, um, basically, you know, it won't go well for the person who doesn't listen to my rebuke. It says time after time and hardens themself to my call. Because eventually it'll come and they'll be overtaken just like that.

And Jesus says this is gonna come like a thief in the night. But what I think is interesting is he reveals himself in thirds. Where did this chapter start? It started with his best friend John. But where did God go to first calling repentance. He went to the churches. You see, repentance needs to start with the church In two Chronicles.

It says, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray, I will hear their cry. And I will what? Heal their land. Land. We got a bunch of churches that haven't repented. We got a bunch of churches that are in, you know, apostasy, some very close driving distance to here, preaching things, believing in things because it's culturally appropriate.

Crowdsourcing their biblical values. We're not gonna be doing that here at this church. I want to be in that Philadelphia group of churches that are there. You see these churches here. Ephesus was admonished for having forsaken their first love. And to your college students right now, you're probably sensing that first love.

I remember that college feeling. It was awesome. I was going after it. I was dressing like Jesus. I was had a, I had this like ghee. I had like this, uh, uh, my, my, uh, karate ghee. And I'd go down and just feed the homeless. I'd go work at the age shelters. I was doing all these things. And then I became a professional Christian. And you ask yourself at 54, where did it all go? That church had lost their first love.

Stick to your first lover. Remember what it feels like right now. 'cause you can draw on that feeling to know when you're in your late fifties and sixties that I'm not there anymore. Remember what it is. Sit and remember, taste and see what it felt like today on stage when you were here worshiping the Lord. Don't forget that because you're gonna need it when you're 40, when you're 30 and a mom with kids and all this stuff going on and the world's crashing down before you and you forget where Jesus is.

Don't forget your first love. Pergamum Church of Pergamum is rebuked for having people who hold to the teachings of baalam. These, these false teachings. Thyra is criticized for tolerating sexual morality and eating the food sacrifice to idols. Sardis is told that they have a reputation of being alive, but they're dead. They're advised to wake up and strengthen what remains and then is about to die.

Leo Deia, the church of La Deia, was lukewarm, he said, but they said, I'm rich. I've acquired wealth and I don't need a thing. And they did not realize that they were wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. And then you have two churches. You got Smyrna. I love saying it. Smyrna poor persecuted, but hold on, because you'll receive the crown of life.

And then the final one is Philadelphia adherence to keeping God's word and not denying his name. They also are given a promise concerning the hour of trial, which is coming upon the whole world. And they are encouraged to hold on to what they have. 38 special said, hold on loosely. Jesus says, hold on tightly, hold on tightly to what you have. And if you have not repented, repent. If you have immorality in your life, if you have things of bitterness, frustration, if you are walking in the way of the pagan world, repent.

God's grace is good. God's blood will set you free. Even us that our pastors need to regularly look at ourselves in the mirror and repent, repent from those things that we might follow Jesus for His repentance. That Jesus Christ is made known and we are set free. And we are healed. And we are covered. No matter if we are burned at the pyre, no matter if we are torn in half, no matter if we are crucified for Jesus upside down like Peter, no matter what it is, we'll be covered in the blood of Jesus.

And that is the promise, because we'll meet him face to face and he will give us a crown of life at that time. And when he does, we will look at the elders who take their crowns off and throw it before the throne of God only to pick them up again. To say, worthy is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And we will throw that crown down again. He'll say, here, take this crown of life. And we'll say, no, worthy is the lamb of God who takes away the sin, who took away the sins of the world and over and over for eternity.

We'll have this back and forth with God as he tells us to wear the crown of life. And we say, we are not worthy of a crown. You are worthy of a crown. This is where God wants us to be. We wanna be a church like Smyrna. We wanna be a church like Philadelphia. Amen.